Tips for extending the life of your cold saw blades

How to maximize the life of your cold saw blades?
No matter how much care you put into your coldsaw, eventually its blades will need resharpened. However, there’re things you can do to maximise the life of your blades, cutting costs in both time and money.

Use the right blade TPI

TPI stands for Teeth Per Inch. TPI (teeth per inch) is a critical consideration when cutting with a coldsaw. The proper blade for an application depends on many factors. These include the hardness of the material, the size of the material, the wall thickness, and more.

Generally, it is best to aim for finer tooth count for harder materials. Similarly, you would be looking for a coarser toothed blade with a lower TPI for softer materials such as aluminium. In part, this is to avoid the material clogging up the blade’s tooth gullets. For this same reason, when cutting a solid section, a fine-tooth pitch can also lead to exceeding gullet capacity. When cutting thin walled material, there should be at least three teeth touching the material at any one time.

If you are still unsure what TPI blade to, feel free to call one of our experts on +44 (0)2476 210 123 or email sales@dimakin.co.uk.

Let your blade do the work

While it sounds daunting at first, don’t pull too hard, but don’t pull too lightly! Cutting with a manual descent coldsaw requires the operator to consider their down feed pressure. Too much pressure can overload the motor, and break teeth. Too little pressure can rub against the metal rather than bite, and dull blades faster. However, with short experience the operator will easily be able to feel when the blade is doing the heavy lifting.

Use coolant!

Thankfully, all DIMAKIN coldsaws come with integral, in-built flood coolant systems. While the coolant pumps run separately and can be turned off if required, it is not recommended when cutting metals. This flood coolant acts to both lubricate and cool the part being cut, and the blade’s teeth during operation. In turn, this extends the life of your blade and the quality of your cuts exponentially.

Ensure the blade is installed correctly

It may seem trivial, but two common mistakes made by busy operators are as follows:

Swarf in the blade mating surface – If you’ve just changed a blade and are finding that it no longer cuts straight, ensure that the mating surface between the blade and the machine is free from debris. Ensuring a clean surface will ensure a perfectly straight cut.

Blade orientation – If you’re finding that your blades are dulling incredibly fast, or even not cutting at all, it’s not uncommon for operators to have accidentally installed the blade the wrong way around. Even seasoned fabricators can sometimes make this mistake – we’ve seen it all before! Ensure that the blade teeth are biting towards the operator. Otherwise, the back of the teeth will merely rub along the material rather than remove chips.

Upgrade to speed regulation

While the entry level machines in the DIMAKIN range are ideal for almost all fabrication applications, one upgrade is available. With the CS-350-DM, a key feature improvement is the inverter driven variable speed dial with digital readout. With this upgrade, operators can reduce or increase the speed dependent on the material being cut. Slower for harder materials such as stainless. Medium speeds for medium materials such as mild. Faster for softer materials such as aluminium. With the CS-350-DM, the operator is able to fine tune the speeds between 24 and 120 RPM. Perfect for extending the life of a coldsaw blade that little bit more, and improving the quality of your workshop fabrication.

How long do blades last, and how to know when a blade needs to be resharpened?

While it is hard to say how long a coldsaw blade will last, if used well, a blade could cut 800 to 1000 times before needing sharpened. However, this is highly dependent on many factors. Factors such as the properties of material being cut, all the way to human factors such as descent pressure. Despite this, one of the main benefits to a coldsaw is that blades can easily and relatively inexpensively be resharpened.

Over time you will easily be able to tell when it is time for a blade to be resharpened. Among these symptoms are:

Dull or blunt teeth
Excessive cut time
Broken teeth
Tearing in thinner material

Whether you’re changing to an alternative TPI (teeth per inch), or your blade has become dull and requires resharpening, with a little bit of practice you will be able to change out a blade in under 60 seconds!

How to change a blade in 60 seconds:

Use a small Alan key to free the blade guard arm and retract the blade guard.
Insert the provided hex wrench into the locking bolt and loosen – clockwise. (Remember this is reverse-thread/left-hand thread!)
Carefully remove the locking washer and blade.
Replace the old blade with new blade. Pay careful attention to the orientation of the teeth (biting clockwise), and that the mating surface is free from swarf or debris.
Return the locking washer and nut, and tighten firmly anti-clockwise.
Return the blade guide and resecure the blade guide arm.
You are now ready to cut!